Dear Mark,
The answer to this question is probably right in front of
my eyes, but I cannot see it. I was watching a poker tournament on the
Travel channel when player A, after seeing his first two cards, bets
$10,000. Player B, still in the game but with far fewer chips, pushes all
his chips to the center and states "all-in." My question is, why can
player B, with far fewer chips and unable to sustain the future raises of
player A, still be able to challenge Player A? Ralph I.
Key to this mystery is the "all-in." Poker in most casinos is played as
"table stakes," meaning that only the chips in play at the beginning of
each the hand can be used throughout that hand. The table stakes rule
has a handmaiden rule, called the "all-in": a player cannot be forced to
forfeit a hand simply because he/she lacks sufficient chips to call the
bet.
A player who does not have enough chips to call a bet is declared
all-in. That player, if a winner, qualifies for only that portion of the
pot as it stood at the time of his final wager, not the whole pot. All
further action among the other players, following a bettor's "all-in"
declaration, takes place in a "side pot," which is inaccessible to the
all-in player.
Dear Mark,
On Deuces Wild in video poker, what are the chances of
getting four deuces? I actually hit one the other night and was
wondering how difficult a feat it was. This leads me to my second
question. I have never gotten a royal flush on a Deuces Wild machine. Is
it harder in Deuces Wild than other versions of video poker? Henry C.
Though hitting four deuces is not the grande victoire of Deuces Wild
video poker, it is still a neat tour de force. On average, you will see
four deuces once in every 4,900 hands. As to the second part of your
question, yes, Henry, it is much harder to get a royal flush at Deuces
Wild than it is on your standard Jacks or Better machine, and here's why.
A royal flush, on average, will appear once every in 40,000 hands of
Jacks-or-better. The royal is more scarce playing Deuces Wild, because
we hold every deuce we get, causing the royal flush to occur at a lower
average frequency in that game than in other versions of video poker.
Holding all those deuces statistically changes the royal flush's
appearance to every 46,000 hands instead of every 40,000.
By the way, though you didn't ask, accept a freebie: deuces royal
happens once in every 650 hands.
Dear Mark,
I'm not familiar with the word "street" used in the
connection you used for last week's column on Hold'em poker. Hordes of
readers probably are, but there may be some dummies like me, who would
benefit from a touch of jargon-clarification. J. N.
There are four rounds of betting in Hold'em. The fourth street is the
fourth card on the board, and the third round of betting. It is also
called "the turn." The fifth and final community card, dealt in flop
games, is called fifth street in Hold'em and Omaha. It is also termed
"the river" and begins the final round of betting. See how easy that is?
Now I suppose you'll want me to define "the turn" and "the river" and
"community card" and "flop games," right?
Gambling quote of the week: "The serious gambler is a man who
is at war with chance and all her bitchy whimsy." William
Pearson, The Muses of Ruin
